


Scenes from a rubbish romance

by luna65



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Jeremy finds himself embroiled in scandal, James is feeling conflicted in regards to his own culpability.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes from a rubbish romance

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place largely in the aftermath of the scandal, with mentions of the WAGs and families, and is more than a bit angst-ridden, just as a warning to those who don't care to read of such things. I also take certain liberties with existing timelines and events, so the depiction is more for dramatic purposes than canon verite.

It wasn't a crap flat, he'd made certain of that, but its spartan decor was something he was now regretting as Jeremy sat on the carpet, back against an outside wall turning cold as night glided in, feeling wretched. He told himself he needed to feel wretched and this new austerity would do for him what his conscience could not.

_You're a bloody fool, but I only expect that you don't make a fool of me as well!_

He had cowed as a woman half his size screamed at him. Not at the truth of her words, but the force of her anger. He possessed a fascination with self-destruction but he wasn't conscious of actually courting it so closely until her tirade stripped him bare.

_I could unmake you, y'know, just as easy as I made you...is that what you want? Has it all become too great a burden for you, Jeremy? I only said don't shit where you eat and y'couldn't even be bothered to do that; but I'll be damned if you take me down with you!_

She'd loved him despite how much of a buffoon he was, realized how he could make it work for rather than against him. In some ways, yes, he was just a puppet but in others the very thing she had made him into and he wanted to lash out at her.

_Happy now? This is what you wanted, after all, so you have to live with what it is._

Because he couldn't truly pretend any of these things, he could only fool by being a fool. And it came so easily to him, the exaggerations of his natural traits. He pulled self-pity over him like a tattered blanket and stared at nothing in the dark.

 

He had been cleaning behind the cooker when Richard phoned him, and thereby knowing as such from the strains of the "Born In The USA" ringtone because that joke never got old. After toweling soot and grease from his hands he patiently spoke a "Yes?" toward the instrument once he answered the call.

"Are you going to rescue the orang then?"

"Didn't know that's wot he needed."

"Well of course he does! I know you heard him groaning to Andy -" and at that Richard's voice dropped registers lower in his attempt at imitation. 'Gonna go down the flat then, and unpack, I reckon,' with his face hanging lower than a rap star's trousers."

James chuckled and moved over to the sink to wash his hands. Richard waited patiently for the ritual to end.

"Probably just slam the door in my face."

"Not if you bring him chicken madras and promise to program all his gadgets and what not."

"I keep thinking - wot's that American saying y'told us, when everything's bollocks'ed up? Not the military one, I know that one, but the other one."

"Screwed the pooch?"

"That'd be it. Y'know I wouldn't turn my back on him but God Almighty has he cocked this up."

"Spectacularly. But that's one thing y'can say for Ole Jezza, wouldn't do it by halves, would he?"

"Or that's rather the problem," James quipped. "Too many halves and no whole."

Richard howled with laughter before attempting control. "Oh God, that's not nice t'all."

"He's a ridiculous man, and you know he'd mock either of us -"

"Not if it was something _serious_ -"

"Need I remind you wot he said to us? 'Stop being such ninnies and leave me be!' It was quite insulting, considering we were only speaking common sense."

"But that's the problem! You will never understand, but when you're in the grip of lust -"

"I don't understand? Hammond, perhaps you should rephrase your argument."

He heard a sharp intake of breath on Richard's end. "Ah. Right. Well, we all know wot it's like to be foolish, it's just that Jeremy knows better than either of us."

"And maybe I'm still angry."

There was a silence, and James busied himself with gathering his cleaning implements and putting them into a bucket which he would later fill with bleach so they could soak for a while in the back garden shed.

"You there, Richard?"

"He wasn't trying to betray **you** , y'know."

"D'ya know how he explained it to me when we tried to tell him he was making a mistake? He said, 'Well if there's a scandal at least this will be the last thing anyone would ever suspect!' And then lunged at me like he always does, bloody clumsy ape. And why, why do I feel like I want to shout at him like he said Francie did? What does it matter? Not to him, the selfish cock. And yet, yes, I have spent all bloody afternoon just waiting for him to ring me and morosely talk me into coming 'round because God help me I still want him. What is it about him which makes him so very addictive?!"

Richard sighed. James imagined the other was fiddling with his hair, blinking rapidly as he tended to do.

"If only...y'know once I had someone ask me, 'How can you stand to breathe his air, let alone work with him?' and I couldn't explain it, really, except to say that once you know someone like that, you tend not to want to let go of them, for fear that life would be so boring otherwise."

And James knew he had articulated much the same thing at times...like the reason he never got any better at riding a motorbike would mean he'd lose his fear, and his fear is what kept the experience thrilling. His fear of wondering how far he would go, how much he would give into Jeremy's demands and taunts and sorry excuses for seduction...it was a thrill he was both deeply ashamed of, and cravenly fascinated with. There was no danger which equalled the thrall of sexual intrigue...because you could walk away from it, even if you lost everything. 

And it was true...the more scandal in regards to the loud-mouthed skirt-chasing boorish presenter which could be uncovered, the less likely the one suspicion which could destroy them all would ever be suspected, much less revealed: just how thinly Jeremy Clarkson was spreading himself among various paramours.

"So -"

James huffed, covering his face with a hand as his psyche cringed with mortification. "Yes, I'll go. And now we must either talk about something else or -"

"What were you cleaning, just now?"

"Behind the cooker."

"Mindy wants to know how you get the gunk off the wall."

"Oh it's simple, really, you just mix -"

And as James chatted on about his strategies for spotlessness, Richard smiled to himself and thought it might actually work out in the end...if only they could stop Jeremy from being a _complete_ idiot. And that wasn't an easy task, certainly, especially since he enjoyed being a bad boy. Richard figured the only one who might rein him in was Francie, or she could, perversely, give him just enough rope to hang himself and walk away, dusting off her hands and humming 'Won't Get Fooled Again.'

_You poor bastard, you really **have** done it this time, haven't you?_

 

James regarded the intercom at the entrance of the building and thought better of it. He selected Jeremy's number on his mobile and waited for the line to engage.

"Calling to say I told you so?" his colleague asked by way of greeting.

"No, I've brought you a curry and beer and you can be a sad bastard all you like. Just let me in, right? It's bloody freezing out here!"

"Where did you go for take-away?"

"Wot does it matter? C'mon, these bags are heavy and my feet are numb."

"It matters a great deal, some of those places are rubbish."

"Chakra."

"Oh, well wot are you waiting for, then?"

The buzzer sounded, the entrance door clicked as the lock was released, and James entered, muttering to himself.

"Has to make everything so bloody difficult, it's a wonder Francie didn't shoot him."

 

Like most of the relationships James had experienced, it wasn't about the sex. He knew that most people - even his friends - wouldn't understand his views on male camaraderie. That he found men just as emotionally satisfying as women, in their way. Spending a day with a man, engaged in various activities, was oftentimes more enjoyable. Women aroused, intrigued, and fascinated him, but he didn't usually possess the patience to actually let them into his mind. And so various men in his life regarded him with bemusement and bewilderment or at the very least a tolerance of his various eccentricities. After all, he usually had the best toys to play with and could always be counted on for proper food and drink.

Occasionally there were...excursions into other regions. Usually brought on by too much wine. After a year of being hazed by the giant _enfant terrible_ of his new employ, James found himself in one such scenario with Jeremy. During a night of epic drinking, it started out with his treatise on how only a man could ever know how best to fellate another man (complete with biological citations), and ended with a proposition, which at first James suspected was just Jezza taking the piss as usual, but the randy gleam in a drunken blue eye told him differently, as the other stood and pulled his old fellah free of the encumberment of clothing. James looked up, suddenly sober and thoughtful.

"When was the last time you washed that thing" he asked, and Jeremy crumpled with laughter and was incoherent and coughing for several minutes. "No I mean it," James said and Jeremy continued to be amused all out of proportion to the situation at hand. "Well I'm certainly not going to suck you if this continues," and it all became very surreal and ridiculous, which James thought was the best way to describe his liaison with The Loud One.

Eventually they did get around to sucking, and other things. It never failed to surprise him, Jeremy's appetite for pleasure and intrigue. He was the proverbial dirty old man, and he reveled in it. And James liked that about Jeremy, that he was so much himself, however vulgar that may be. It was as if Jeremy felt some imperative to be as perverted as he could manage, and James was his grand experiment.

"Don't give me one of your lectures tonight, right?" Jeremy commanded upon opening the door of his apartment.

"Wot, y'want two or three instead?"

"Fuck off."

"Well hello to you as well, and you're welcome. Do you have your crockery about?"

Jeremy waved a hand towards the kitchen, taking the bag with the beer in it to liberate one for himself. James entered to a stack of boxes, sighing.

"Y'haven't unpacked a thing, have you?"

"Didn't feel like it," and Jeremy's answer was so misery-laden James felt his sentiment for the other climb up out of the place where he'd tried to lock it away. "Why can't we just eat out of the containers?"

James frowned. "Y'can if you like, but I never do unless there's no choice. Much better to have a proper plate and cutlery."

"Good lord, if I ever meet anyone even half as fussed as you I shall fall over dead."

"Do shut up and eat your supper, before I dump it over your bushy head."

"Ooh, are we onto the food fetish thing now? Surely it could be something less messy?"

"Shut. It." But between those emphatic utterances James felt himself smiling.

 

It was times like these, when they were together and engaged in something which didn't require conversation, that James found himself musing upon history. Specifically their particular secret history. 

The tabloids had crucified his part-time temptress, but even those people had no idea of the extent of Jeremy's entanglements. He collected people from amongst the pool of colleagues and co-workers and likely ignored Francie's edict simply because he could. Then again, he was also apt to choose someone who had just as much to lose if the information of their dalliance became public.

Nick Dalton, for example. He was far too pretty to be a researcher, James thought, and sure enough the orang noticed him and thus began the other's grooming for greater things. It was sort of tragic, really, to witness that hedgehog-in-the-headlamps look which formed on Nick's telegenic face when cornered by The Loud One. Because it was difficult to resist Jeremy when he set his sights on you: he was charming and funny and if he liked you then he had seductive ways of showing it. Women tended to respond in the usual way but men - even when they knew what he ultimately wanted - might puzzle over his attention all the same. Jeremy was a literal embodiment of a three-day bender, and one wasn't quite certain they desired to wake up in a ditch at the end of it, regardless of the actual amount of fun involved.

But James could concede it would be difficult to ignore Nick, he was a total package, and most of the girls in the office giggled over him when he breezed through and gave his typical "Hullo all, lovely day rather, yes?" greeting in his smooth deep cadence like expensive chocolate, with a long-legged stride, and they twittered and cooed in his wake. James knew that Jeremy saw himself in Nick, but Nick was by far the more polished and posh of the two at that tender age. Jeremy had to barge his way onto the telly through sheer blunt determinism whereas the first time Nick had a camera pointed at him Andy was heard to exclaim, "Sodding perfect that one is, could give Hammo a run, I'd say."

"No no," Jeremy countered, but with his usual dramatic mocking inflection, "he doesn't have those puppy dog eyes which have hypnotized an unsuspecting viewership."

Nick, who was supposed to be narrating a Behind The Scenes short, flubbed his line and buried his face in his hands as the take was halted.

"Wot do I tell you lot, if you show weakness, you're dead," Jeremy proclaimed.

Nick's ascension was the first time James caught a glimpse of The Loud One's greater proclivities and it made for an incredibly strange conversation with the other leg of the triumvirate. James invited Richard to the house of an evening under the pretense of discussing a motorbike purchase, and after a couple pints, with the shiny pages of various Ducati, Aprilla, and Yamaha brochures scattered around them, James queasily proffered a question he knew he could never ever take back once it had been asked.

"Am I completely daft, or does Jeremy fancy Nick? Not in a flaming sort of way, but with not-so-subtle interest?"

Richard cleared his throat, took a long swallow of his London Pride, then cleared his throat again. Those aforementioned puppy dog eyes blinked rapidly.

"I'm saying this because you're my mate and I trust you but I swear if you breathe a word of it to Clarkson, or Andy, or anyone else I will throttle you."

"Hammond, why do you think I'm asking _you_ and not him? He would make a misery of my professional life, I'm well aware."

"Jeremy...wants what he wants. Who he wants. There doesn't seem to be a difference for him, except in all his posturing that he's not the least bit lavender. When I had my audition he gave me the eye - and you know how you know wot it means - but I kept going on 'bout Mindy and I s'pose he got the message; he never took it further. But I've seen it, here and there, but never so literally as with that one."

James sat back, pushing at his hair with the heel of one hand. "The Bard was onto something with that 'protest too much' business."

"Well yeah, except somehow I reckon Jezza has convinced himself that wot he does isn't gay in the least. He likes to play games. Some of them involve sex. He thinks he needs that kind of attention or he's not living up to whatever it is he’s supposed to be, while at the same time always saying he's just a Northern lad wot got lucky."

James laughed derisively. "Christ preserve us wot a pillock he is!"

Richard looked hurt. "Hang on, he may be ridiculous but he's not evil. Well, not entirely."

"Yes it's that 25 percent I'm a bit bothered with."

"Is that in _Top Gear_ maths or real maths?"

The two of them laughed quite a lot at their inside joke, and then were both too conflicted to continue the conversational detour. Talking about superbikes was, oddly enough, a much safer topic.

 

But when he gave Richard's explanation more thorough consideration, James realized that what was going on with Nick meant that he wasn't a special case, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. He imagined it had something to do with Jeremy approaching fifty, and thus his very own version of a mid-life crisis.

_How exactly does one say, 'Hang on, I thought **we** were having an intermittent secret homosexual affair, and if you're going to idiotically chase this boy too then you can stop bothering me!'?_

He had once asked Francie while a bit tipsy at a series wrap party, "How ridiculously difficult is it to live with him?" and she had only laughed and nodded in reply, and so held his tongue against _Well then you wouldn't believe what he's asking of **me**. Or maybe you would._

But of course just as James thought things couldn't get any more absurd, then they did.

 

It was inevitable that Richard would discover why James was so curious, though it was something less facile to discern, their long hours of mandated camaraderie providing ample camouflage for any other sort of interest. But then one painfully early morning in Lillehammer, during their filming of the Winter Olympics special, Richard heard banging in the corridor outside their rooms and found his greatly-disheveled colleague skulking about, weaving as he shuffled towards his room. His t-shirt was inside out and wrong-way-round. His hair looked tousled beyond the usual bedhead. He appeared to have misplaced his card key.

“James, mate, are you alright?” Richard whispered as he stepped outside.

James mumbled something in reply.

“All right then, okay, c’mon now.” He led the other to his room and gently pushed him upon the bed. “Out with it, mate.”

“Huh?”

“This is not normal for you, not even ‘I’ve drunk enough to sink the fleet’ normal, and I don’t want to be worried, because you look like you need a doctor. Today is the bobsled filming and frankly I can only take so much terror at one time.”

“Fine.”

“Wot’s that?”

“I’m fine. Jezza and I -”

“- had some Norwegian prosties ‘round for an orgy? Wot, exactly, is going on?”

“No!” James appeared to come to himself then in that moment. “Just a late night, we both passed out and I just now came to.”

“Look, I don’t care wot you did, but I **do** care if it’s going to affect our jobs, y’know?”

James spoke the sentence slowly and carefully, in order to have to say it only once.

“Jeremy makes certain demands of me, sometimes. And I let him.”

Richard blinked rapidly, eyes wide and a puzzled expression draining away as he interpreted the innuendo.

“Oh.”

“But it’s fine, and I’d rather not discuss it. Not now, any road.”

“Right.”

James set off once more for his room and Richard began his intellectual journey towards acceptance of the situation, wondering - as he had now and again ever since he first encountered The Loud One - what such a thing might be like...realizing as well that Jeremy’s repeated gibes and taunts to James were likely passionate expressions of the desire he was struggling to downplay.

“Funny,” he murmured as he readied himself for his daily run, “I would have pegged Oz Clarke as much more James’ type, being so clever and all.” 

But Jezza had a weird sort of mojo, bless him.

 

When it came to women, they all preferred blondes - Jeremy's idolatry of Kristin Scott-Thomas notwithstanding - and so every blonde on the crew had learned to kindly ignore Jezza's leering and tolerate his sometimes borderline-obscene remarks. He was the talent, but could be extremely gallant when he felt like it. He was always the first to chip in for flowers on various occasions and provide compliments on new hairstyles and outfits. He noticed such things even as he liked to paint himself as a clueless ubermale. He was a charmer, and he had to be, because even he was willing to admit he looked a bit ridiculous, though his status as an unlikely sex symbol was firmly established. 

But when he strayed for real, well of course it **had** to be a blonde.

 

His colleagues' reaction to _La Scandale_ was almost comfortingly opportunistic.

"We're all in dutch, you idiot," Richard groused. They'd gone 'round to Andy's for an emergency confab even as Jeremy was scheduled to go on holiday with the family the following week. "The women have been _talking_ , and now Mindy's giving me the hairy eyeball."

"I had to endure an interrogation the likes of which even Gary Francis Powers couldn't have withstood," James reported. "Also a lecture on how the phrase 'thick as thieves' needn't necessarily apply to my relationship with you, personal or otherwise." 

Jeremy fidgeted under the hail of their complaints and then turned a baleful eye to his producer.

"Yes we're all getting our feet roasted over the coals of your crash-and-burn," Andy said, " **but** , I'll only say wot I've always said: just make certain Francie doesn't get stroppy _enough_ that she takes everything and leaves you as pathetic as you were when she found you. Because she doesn't need you, she never did, and therefore she has all the power."

"And having to answer for **your** behavior!" Richard exclaimed. "Didn't we see wot was happening, didn't we try and stop you, didn't we remind you wot a bloody _saint_ you are married to? And having to say 'Yes, we tried to stop the giant oaf from going wrong but he just wouldn't listen!' I don't like having to feel like I was in school again and being told you're that bad element I shouldn't be going about with."

“And the paps have been following you day-and-night for years now, I can’t believe you didn’t even _think_ about the repercussions of **that** ,” James snapped. “Not for us, but for -”

Andy - standing behind Jeremy as they lounged in his billiards room - widened his eyes as a warning. _Steady on now, Slow_ , he seemed to caution.

“I’m not launching into an elaborate defense before The Crown, right?” Jeremy said, his tone both sardonic and angry. “All your complaints are duly noted and I can honestly say I wasn’t attempting to ruin anyone’s career, _especially_ my own.”

And although James shouldn’t have said it, he did anyway. 

“No, just the ruin of your family, is all. Not intending that either, I imagine?”

Those dynamic blue eyes he had long admired turned so cold as they stared him down he almost shivered.

 

And so the time went by, with the press spoiling for blood, gleefully publishing seemingly a new story every day to shame the presenter so many loved to hate. James wasn’t wont to discuss his day job with his other mates - he thought it unseemly to make any reference to being Television’s James May - and so there was blessed silence, finally, in his personal life although now whenever something work-related did come up, Sarah did not want to hear The Loud One invoked within their common domesticity. He wanted to blurt out, “It’s just Jezza, y’know, he’s an _idiot_!” but he knew that argument didn’t really cut it with women. Women always had such high standards that men didn’t always have either the inclination or the energy to live up to them. When it was time to begin filming the next series, Andy had phoned him the night before their first production meeting.

“May, I want you to go easy on Jez, right? Whatever you think, he’s fragile right now. Francie made him move out.”

“But he’s normally in the city during production any road.”

“Yes but now that extends to all the time.”

James paused, feeling sorry for Jeremy, mixed with a distinct pang of longing.

“I’m not _mad_ , I’m _sad_ ,” he replied by way of explanation.

“We all are,” Andy said quietly.

 

James was chewing his way through a particularly delicious poppadom when Jeremy’s phone played some weird electronica flourish and its owner picked it up, peering at the screen with narrowed eyes.

“It’s Em, she keeps changing her ringtone on my phone,” he murmured, then answered the call. “Hullo darling, how’s my girl then?”

James smiled, he felt slightly more comforted to know Emily continued on in her role of Daddy’s Girl. He whispered, “Hi Emily!” to the other as the conversation went on.

“Well you shouldn’t drive all the way there on your own, luv, why’d you take Chris along? Yes, I know he’s boring but he’s a good driver!”

After a few other admonishments Jeremy said, “James is here, we laid waste to a curry, he says, ‘Hullo,’” lowering his voice to do his now-infamous impersonation of his colleague in the guise of the character he claimed James had kinship with: Eeyore. Jeremy then held out his phone to the other, who took it out of his hand.

“Em, as much as I hate to agree with the pater, I also think you should take the boring slow driver with you on whatever journey you are planning.”

“You?” she teased with a high-pitched giggling query.

“No dear, not _literally_ me!”

“Is he okay, then?” she asked, her voice now modulated to a murmur of concern. “He’d never tell me if he wasn’t.”

“Well enough, dear,” he replied. “Here’s your dad, then, you be careful now.”

She chirped “Bye-bye” in the space between the two men as James handed back the phone.

“I love you, petal, go get your beauty sleep, right? G’night sweetheart.”

Richard’s voice was an echo of commentary in James’ head. _...but he’s not evil. Well not entirely._

Jeremy finished off his beer and sighed, pushing away the plate James had managed to unearth from one of the many boxes. “That was lovely, thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome. Feel a bit less miserable now?”

“A smidge. There is a hole which even curry cannot fill.”

“Are you propositioning me, Clarkson?”

“It’s been a while.”

_He really has no shame, does he?_

“Let me sort some other things out in here while I decide.”

“But if you do **that** , I’ll have nothing to write about!”

“I can’t believe you actually _admit_ wot an idiot you are to the reading public.” 

“Because it’s easy!” Jeremy declared in the comedic inflection well-known to the viewers of their programme. He lit a cigarette and considered having another beer.

“Yes but I know you’ll be wanting coffee in the morning and I would hate for you to take to the motorway uncaffeinated.”

“True, that would be a hazard.”

“Wot **do** you have hooked up?”

“TV, stereo, Playstation.”

“Computer?”

“No,” again in that same dramatic deep inflection he used on television. “Need to see if my little man can pop ‘round and make sense of it.”

“Well how you will write your column if you don’t have your Internet sorted?”

“I’ll just go into Television Centre and do it there.”

“Don’t let them put you on a plinth,” James cracked and was rewarded with a chuckle.

With dinner completed a companionable near-silence settled upon them, Jeremy watching as James puzzled over the mysteries of the espresso machine.

“Why didn’t you just get a normal coffee maker?” he asked, deciding not to remind the other that making a cup of tea was infinitely easier.

“It was a gift. I’m lucky I made it out with that.”

James had been wondering if he should inquire as to the aftermath of Francie’s edict, and did so without looking at what he knew would be a morose expression upon that long wrinkled face.

“Is everyone okay? Fin and Kat?”

“I’m sure they will be; Em was upset but I told her not to get cross with her mum, she had every right.”

“They know wot’s important, I should think. That you love them.”

“Yes, of course.”

The contraption was assembled and hooked up. “Right; let me explain this to you as simply as I can.” James motioned for Jeremy to come over to the counter. As the other crossed the room James took a moment to look around at the decor: blond wood and white walls and all that sort of clean minimalism which was in now; he figured Em had helped him pick it out and she thought it was _cool_. But when he pictured Jeremy’s study in the Chipping Norton house, that lovely furnished shrine to all the accomplishments Francie had built into an empire of sorts, again he felt very sad in the midst of this almost anonymous sterility. Then Jeremy let out a ponderous sigh which stirred his hair and its warmth against his neck gave James a shiver.

“Say whatever you’re going to say and get it over with, yes? I don’t think I can take anymore of your barely-suppressed scorn.”

“I’m not -”

“You **are**!” Jeremy countered. “I can tell by how rigid you’re standing, like someone left a poker up your arse and forgot to tell you.”

“You are the poker up my arse, it would be just like you to forget you’d left it there,” James replied, quietly deadpan. After a few beats Jeremy began snickering. “Stop it, let me tell you how to use this thing.”

“No leave it, I’ll just stop in at Starbucks on the way tomorrow. Let’s have another beer.”

They each helped themselves to another bottle and settled down on Jeremy’s seven-foot black leather sofa. Jeremy picked up his master remote and after switching on the television and the satelite receiver began flipping through the Sky programme menu.

“No,” Jeremy droned at every listing as he scrolled down the screen.

“Phil Spencer!” James exclaimed, pointing at the screen. “You need to watch him.”

“Why? It’s all about redoing houses, isn’t it?”

“Yes but you might learn something useful to decorate the flat.”

“I’m not ready for that yet. Em will do it, one of these days.”

“The Mafia!” James then suggested, indicating a show on BBC2.

“No.”

“Oooh, _School of Hard Sums_! That’s a good’un!”

“No.”

“But it’s all about maths!”

“Precisely why I can’t be bothered.”

“Stubborn bastard.”

“That appears to be the consensus.” Jeremy sighed and selected a movie.

“Wot is it?”

“Some spy thing.”

“But it’s halfway through.”

“Don’t care.”

James was reaching saturation level with his frustration but knew Jeremy wouldn’t want him to leave, not yet. He opened his beer and lit a cigarette, thinking tomorrow would be a very long day indeed. Fifteen minutes passed in which he couldn’t make head nor tail of the plotline, but there was a car chase, and a shootout, and various people doing a lot of shouting, and something to do with bombing London.

“Are we only pretending to watch this? If so, we might as well play Scrabble.”

“Can we just sit here? Please?!”

“This **is** a nice sofa.”

“It’s the proper length.”

“And width?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Just want to be able to get some kip now and again.”

James nodded. “The mark of a good sofa is the depths of your mid-afternoon snooze post-nosh.”

“You should write a column on that.”

“No that’s _your_ next column, I reckon.”

“You’re the one who can spin a thousand words ‘bout a sofa, not me. How you do go on.”

“Oh now you’re just blatantly seducing me, sir.”

Jeremy chuckled despite himself and gave his colleague a gentle knock on the shoulder.

“So c’mon, out with it already.”

James sighed out an exhale as the space between them grew gauzy and diffused. “I just want to know _why_. Why you had to ruin such a good thing. I thought part of what made us special is that we aren’t celebrities because we have real relationships with real people and aren’t up to any of that laddish nonsense.”

“And then I had to go and destroy your illusions.”

“Precisely. It would have been one thing if it was someone I didn’t know, but it really hurt because -”

“You’re going all melodramatic on me, May.”

“Goddamn it I trusted you!”

“And you don’t now?”

“I don’t know!”

“Well that makes two of you, then.”

Silence descended, save for the explosions, car chases, and tension-filled film score. When Jeremy next spoke it was quiet enough that James almost missed the utterance.

“You’ve _always_ acted like you didn’t trust me, held yourself back and apart from me. Looked at me strangely all the time. So it’s difficult for me to believe all this sudden indignation.”

“One isn’t sure what to make of you sometimes. You can’t deny that.”

“But it’s been nearly ten years, don’t you think by **now** you would have worked it out?”

“And you’ve been married for eighteen years, I reckon she thought she knew **you** down to your dirty socks under the bed!”

Jeremy put a large hand over his large face and it was in gestures such as these that he looked hewn from granite, an impressive monument of a man given to equally outsize movement.

“Too well. So much so she went in the opposite direction from me and I thought, ‘Well I’ll show her, won’t I? Wot happens when you ignore me.’”

“But you can’t fault her for wanting to be fit and do good works, you needn’t take it personally!”

“But it was more than that, I felt entirely inadequate. So yes, I am a wretched man deserving of your censure. But we have to work together, after all, so I would hope we can at least reach an understanding.”

“I’m not _mad_ , I’m _sad_. It’s such a mess.”

“I rather thought the two of you would treat it like another car crash: _wot a bloody shame, glad it’s not me_ ,” Jeremy quipped in full gallows humour.

“Jeremy, do you remember when I told Wossy I didn’t feel any closer to you after driving to the Pole?”

The other nodded. “And I knew you were being a smartarse.”

“There was a day - but I can’t remember _which_ day - and I woke up and I wondered why we were still alive. I sat up in my sleeping bag and it was so cold, so desolate, and I was ready to weep except terrified to do so because, like sweating, I thought it might kill me, and I looked at you. You were still asleep and your face had managed to come free of the hood of your bag and there was something -” James paused, trimming the ash from his cigarette and glancing briefly at the television screen. “- something so vulnerable about your expression and yet I was _still_ conflicted. You are the most infuriating and the most endearing person I likely will ever know. And yes, I lied, on television, for the sake of a quip. But I s’pose what I really want to know is: why couldn’t I be enough for you? Why - when you decided to rebel or have a crisis or what-have-you - couldn’t you have just stuck to me as your outlet for bad behaviour?”

Jeremy’s smile was incredulous. “Is that wot you thought? You were saving me from my baser instincts?”

“Wasn’t I?”

“James, I fancy you because you’re **you**. There’s only one of you - thank the Baby Jesus - and when you meet someone who is so much themselves, then you hold onto that person by whatever means possible.”

_Just like I do with you, orang._

“I hadn’t assigned you such responsibility because - whatever we might represent to one another - it was transitory, somehow. That distance meant I didn’t think I would be able to hold your interest for too long.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“Besides, Slow...no one can save me when I’m determined to muck it up, haven’t I proven that already?”

James found himself musing that this observation was all at once humorous, sad, and absolutely correct. He tacked away from the reefs of melancholy with his next query.

“So...do you now own the biggest bed in Bayswater?”

“Near enough. Would you care for a tour?”

His touch was light along the arm of the other. “Lead on, Jezza.”

 

It had been such a nice day, James thought, despite the old ache of conscience in the presence of his colleague’s folly, now someone seeming to be an accessory for nearly any trip, business or otherwise. Australia was in fine form weather-wise and they’d spent a pleasant afternoon on the water in a hired yacht. Then the group - consisting of the talent, _Top Gear Live_ executive crew members, organizers, and publicists - gathered to dine al fresco at Otto, though James rolled his eyes a bit at the menu, loaded with what he termed "food poncery." But as he was hungry he wasn't going to take explicit issue with it. Jeremy was in good spirits, always happy to be in a country where smokers weren't looked upon as pariahs, regaling the group with various anecdotes from the previous tour of Russia.

"Oooh I want the ox tongue," he enthused, looking over the menu with his reading glasses perched upon his nose.

"You needn't approach dining as yet another stunt," James quipped, trying to find something which was not so frilly in his estimation.

"James, try the crayfish," one of the publicists told him, "That's one of their specialities."

"That's like crawfish, isn't it?" he muttered. "Had some in New Orleans, not certain if I liked them."

"Tell him the most boring thing on the menu, that's what he'll want," Jeremy gibed, and they all laughed, as if expecting their banter extended to every waking moment.

“I feel like something terribly fancy,” another female voice chimed in.

James looked at the other end of the table to the one who had spoken: the tall tanned blonde wearing a purple sundress and matching espadrilles. 

Jeremy didn’t look up but his eyes flicked over to James, who sat on his left. The other’s mouth was open slightly as he looked at the woman, then back at his menu.

“I’ll have the fettucini,” he said.

“Wot did I tell you?!” Jeremy exclaimed, and there was laughter all around.

 **Had** been. He drank red wine and noted the assemblage were doing their best to forget the ugly scene which had taken place in front of the restaurant as they entered. James knew he was seeing yet another chapter of a life forever altered by impulsive decisions. 

But God help him, he **still** fancied the idiot. And he didn’t blame the woman...Jezza had a way about him, James knew it, mused upon it, wrestled with it and allowed it to consume him.

“Perhaps Roast of Bete Noir would be far more appropriate,” he quipped, looking into those striking blue eyes and daring their owner to take offense at his comment. But Jeremy gave up the game of chicken within seconds, turning his gaze to his own glass of wine.

Dinner continued with lively conversation and good food, enough to finally distract everyone...that was, until the check was paid and it was time to depart. James watched as Jeremy spoke to a few of the males in their party, telling them to take everyone out, he and James were going to the bar in the hopes that the paps would get distracted. He motioned at James to follow him over to the other end of the restaurant.

“You’re **still** upset?” he murmured as they each had another glass of wine.

“Rather not have the paps following us all over the fucking country, and now they will for certain.”

“They would anyway.”

“No Jeremy.” James was speaking very quietly, and the two sat on the far side of the bar huddled closely together. “Now that they’ve caught you out yet again they want to shame you - not because you care - to convince the rest of the world you’re King Tosser and the Beeb should give you the sack. And you’re not helping matters.”

“I wouldn’t dare tell you how to live your life!” his colleague hissed through discolored teeth.

“But that’s just it: you do. By your very _unholy_ interest in me, you are directing the course of my personal life. You don’t think it’s a problem that I can’t ever again mention your name to Sarah?”

“It’s all been found out, don’t see why they care anymore.”

“Because you’re still married, for one. You sounded like a right moron out there.” James lowered his voice in impersonation. “‘Why are you doing this?!’ I’ll tell you why: you are a celebrity cheating on your wife and they will not leave you alone. They’re lined up and waiting for your next indiscretion. Look, this is the same useless debate we had when they caught you in Rome, and frankly I think I’ve had enough.”

“So wot are you saying, then?”

“I’m saying I don’t care to discuss it any longer. You do wot you will but stop being willfully stupid about it; I don’t believe that’s too much to ask.”

Jeremy looked at his watch. “Been nearly an hour, I s’pose it’s safe to dash.”

“No, they’ll be at least one bottomfeeder out there, wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we weren’t in the group when they left.”

Jeremy sighed tiredly. “All right, I’ll just ignore them.”

“I’m not leaving with you. Run along, I’m sure your mistress is wondering what’s become of you.”

Jeremy hailed the bartender. “Is the water taxi still running?”

“No sir, they close down at eleven. But you can cab it from here back ‘round the long way.”

“Don’t be difficult, Slow, let’s get a taxi and call it a night.”

“Mr. Clarkson I don’t believe you heard me the first time. I bid you good night.”

“Can someone call me a taxi?” he asked the bartender.

“There’s a kiosk up on Bourke Street, the next block over, you can get one there directly, sir.”

“Wonderful,” Jeremy replied with just a touch of sarcasm. “Can’t believe you’re making me go it alone out there.”

“Don’t you remember? I can’t save you when you’re determined to go down. This is me, saluting the sinking ship.”

As those words emerged unbidden James was somewhat stunned by their tone. But then it was done and Jeremy gathered his things and stalked out, his face a mask of frustration and anger.

Maybe even regret.

 

The paparazzi did find it strange that Jeremy wandered out of the restaurant on his own, looking slightly drunk and forlorn, peering at street signs and then at his phone as he doggedly moved away from their pursuit.

“If I find a policeman I won’t hesitate to tell him to run you all in,” he called over his shoulder. not able to resist a bit of taunting.

“Yeah good luck with that, Jezza!” one of them shot back. “So where’s your partner, where’s Captain Slow?”

“You want a photo op buy a fucking ticket to the show!” he barked, and then concentrated on walking, fearful he might lose his way.

Unbeknownst to his colleague, James _had_ followed him out and stood by the entrance, just inside the doorway. It was perhaps the saddest thing he had ever witnessed - even worse than imagining Richard lying pale and fragile in a hospital bed - to see a man who had so much force and determination looking utterly lost and alone.

He wondered if Jeremy would ever forgive him the hard lesson, but believed it might be the only way to make him understand.

_Tough love, isn’t that what they call it?_

James looked down at the directions he had the bartender write out for him and departed along the now-silent street.


End file.
